Seed Issue Sharply Divides FAO Delegates

ROME – The battle over who will control the world’s plant seed resources continues to sharply divide rich and poor nations’ delegates at the biennial conference of the Rome-based United Nations Food And Agricultural Organization (FAO).

First and Third World countries are split on whether to pass a proposed international agreement calling for “unrestricted access” to both patented and unpatented genetic seed material, which can be critical for poor nations seeking to plant the hardiest possible seeds.

The United States, which in recent years has taken a tough line on many UN initiatives, has said it will not accept a FAO resolution that calls for the universal sharing of all plant genetic resources because the resolution violates national legislation related to patents.

But this week’s debate at FAO does not fall along the expected lines of developed countries against developing countries.

A number of developing countries, with their own seed resource interests to protect, have also expressed reservations about proposals related to plant genetics discussed at the conference, among them Ethiopia, India and Brazil.

Ethiopia has said it cannot agree to the proposal on the basis of “national sovereignty.”

Ethiopia is currently enforcing an embargo on its coffee germplasm which might be used to dramatically reverse recent crop failures in several South American countries, UN sources report.

“The jurisdiction of all affairs relating to policy on genetic resources belongs to the country concerned,” said Ethiopian delegate Eshetu Debabu on Wednesday.

Ethiopia would not support the measure “until the relevant articles in it are adequately amended to accommodate Ethiopia’s interest,” Debabu said.

Ethiopia’s intransigence illustrates the degree to which plant genetics is a “sensitive” domestic concern for both first and third world countries, Marc-Andre Fredette, deputy director of multilateral affairs in Canada’s Ministry of Agriculture, told the Courier.

“Brazil is in bad need of coffee germplasm. It had bad harvests after a terrible frost. Do you think Ethiopia cares about its ‘brothers’ in Brazil right now?” Fredette asked rhetorically.

A particularly controversial clause in the resolution, known as an “Undertaking,” asks that so-called “elite” seed varieties be available “without restriction” to those who seek them.

“The Undertaking is inconsistent with the United States laws concerning patent rights, intellectual property and plant variety protection,” said Antonia Gayoso, a member of the US delegation, speaking to the 156 FAO delegates on Thursday.

While the proposed “International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources” would not be legally binding, it calls for the creation of a UN commission to research legal questions related to ownership of germplasm by international and national institutions, and private industries.

The debate is critical because, according to many sources, the overwhelming majority of seed strains used to produce food crops in developed countries have their original genetic homes in developing countries.

“The North’s dependence upon Third World germplasm is almost impossible to exaggerate,” said Pat Roy Mooney, author of “Law of the Seed,” an important 1979 study of the problem. Mooney was an observer at the conference.

He pointed out that every Canadian wheat variety contains genes from 14 Third World countries; that American lettuce is genetically composed of strains from Israel and Turkey, and that North American beans have been transformed by strains from Mexico, Syria, Turkey, Chile and El Salvador.

He said that Third World countries might be forced to resort to scientific embargoes on their raw seed genetic materials if industrialized nations remain “so intransigent” on the issue of sharing engineered seed material.

Delegates also differ on whether the institutions in charge of seed genetic material are adequate, or if steps need to be taken to ensure better use of national and international research centers and seed banks established.

Canada opposed the resolution, pushing instead for a proposal within the resolution to create a new international “network” of gene banks under FAO auspices.

This “network” duplicates the efforts of already existing institutions to collect and preserve gene stock, the Canadian delegate said.

But Mooney charged that the storage and distribution of genetic seed material is currently mismanaged.

Countries have been advised to store their seed material in overflowing gene banks in the U.S. and other industrialized countries, while available banks in developing countries go unused,” added Mooney, who works for the International Organization of Consumers Union.

“Between one-half to two-thirds of all germplasm stored in such countries as the U.S. and Australia has been lost for technical or administrative reasons,” Mooney said.

It seems likely that the Undertaking will be adopted next week despite the reservations of certain countries, FAO sources say.

The majority of FAO member nations are poor countries without vested interests in advanced seed technologies.

From their standpoint, they are likely to benefit from the resolution despite its limitations.

The FAO Conference ends Wednesday.

The International Courier
24-25 November 1985